Gone to the dogs!

The past couple of weeks have found us taking a respite from the mountains of work and sharing with you photos and recaps of some of our "lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer". But, sadly, it is time to get back to work.  Before that we wanted to share with you another fun project: We recently celebrated a birthday (but I will not say which birthday as we do value our friendship) with our very dear friend Tracy.  As our gift to her Martin carved a sculpture of her dog Dale, who is a 3 legged wonder and her loving companion.  The gift  was a very pleasant surprise for her and one that I know she cherishes.

If you knew Dale you would understand what a spunky and funny and loving dog he is.  And while he may be a tad challenged by having 3 legs he is an extremely agile canine and could give us two-legged humans a run for our money any day. Dale was started from one large block of wood although Martin did have to add a separate piece for the tail for, if it had it been from the same block the end grain would have made this section too fragile. The wood he chose was Alder as it is a reasonable wood to carve and it has little grain allowing Martin to paint on Dale's coloring.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, Martin is thinking about sculpting our dog Iris.  Iris' sculpture will focus only on her head.  But just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with her body (unlike her human companions, Martin and I) as she has beautifully defined muscles and a generally athletic physique.  To begin the process Martin studies photographs that will become drawings that are then properly scaled so that they can be traced onto a block of wood.

We were wondering if any of our readers have any suggestions for a suitable wood.  We are thinking of walnut, which carves beautifully but the dark brown color will fade to a golden color over time.  Or perhaps white oak that, despite its name, is light brown in tone. We hope you enjoy our sculptures.  As you may be aware, the process of creating a sculpture and a bespoke piece of architectural hardware is quite similar.  To view our entire collection of custom hardware please visit our site at www.martinpierce.com.